


What Child Is This Who Laid To Rest

by DKNC



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DKNC/pseuds/DKNC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Catelyn Stark has always loved holidays, and Christmas brings her the most joy of all, especially since she’s had Ned and their children in her life. Yet, in the wake of a devastating loss, she doesn't how she'll find her way back to joy in anything, or even if she should.</p><p>This story was written for Ned/Cat week on tumblr in response to the prompt "Holiday" because I am a terrible person who thought about Christmas carols and came up with THIS. </p><p>WARNING: This story does portray the grief and guilt experienced by a woman who has just lost a child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Child Is This Who Laid To Rest

_For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. Unto us . . ._

Catelyn Stark awoke to the sounds of Handel’s Messiah stabbing into her ears and heart like a knife. Choking back a sob, she rolled over and pushed her face into the pillow in an attempt to shut out the sound, shut out the grief, shut out everything.

It didn’t work. She could still hear the song, and she was still achingly aware of the emptiness in her womb. Two days ago, her son had rested there. _My son._ She hadn’t known he was a son, of course, not until he was already lost to her. The stupid song wasn’t over yet. _Unto us a son is given._ She sat up in bed and hurled her pillow at the door of the bedroom as if that would stop Handel from mocking her.

Ned was nowhere to be seen. She looked at the clock beside the bed and saw that it read 8:30am. He would have left for work already, and the older two children would be at school. She wondered vaguely if Ben was still there or if Ned had taken Arya and Bran somewhere else. Arya had preschool 3 days a week, and she absently tried to recall what day today was.

 _Monday,_ she thought dully. _My baby died on Saturday._ Only it wasn’t a baby. That’s what they’d kept telling her. No birth certificate. No death certificate. A fifteen week fetus was not viable. Yet, how could he not have been a baby? She’d held him in her hand, only four inches long but perfect all the same. Not anywhere close to ready to be born, but perfect.

_I wonder as I wander out under the sky . . ._

The music had changed, and Catelyn realized that someone must have started one of her many Christmas music mixes playing before leaving the house, forgetting to turn it off. 

_Sansa, ___she thought. At six, Sansa had seemingly inherited her love of Christmas music and already knew the words to a surprisingly large number of carols. Nine year old Robb liked them all right, but wouldn’t have started playing them, and Ned never turned on Christmas music. Ned only celebrated Christmas for her benefit and the children’s, having been raised with no particular religion at all—just a sort of confident belief in some kind of higher power.

_If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing_

_A star in the sky or a bird on the wing_

_Or all of God's Angels in heaven to sing_

_He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King._

The words to the song suddenly made her angry, and she found herself shouting at God. “Anything! You could have anything! So, why my baby? Why take my baby? You shouldn’t have! Why?”

Her shouts faded into sobs, and she rocked back and forth in her bed hugging herself as she would have hugged her child had she only been given the chance to carry him to term.

“Cat?”

The bedroom door opened and Ned stood there with his face full of concern. He was wearing the ridiculous Christmas pajamas Robb had insisted on getting him last Christmas and the fuzzy slippers he’d received from the girls—the ones he always complained to her made his feet too hot.

“What . . . what are you doing here?” she asked him, wiping at her red eyes and feeling terribly humiliated that he had to see her like this.

“Where else would I be?” he asked, coming to sit on the bed beside her.

“It’s Monday,” she said as if that explained everything. “You have work.”

“Not today, I don’t. I called in. Cat . . . they wanted to keep you again last night. They only let us come home because you begged them. Did you honestly think I would leave you here alone?”

“I thought . . . Ben or . . . maybe Lysa could come over later.”

“I sent Ben home as soon as I got you into bed, my love. As for your sister, I hardly think she’d be sympathetic company.”

“No,” Catelyn acknowledged, reaching for the tissue box beside the bed. “I suppose not. And I have no right to cry to her. My god, Ned, how can she have lived through this so many times?”

The tissue box was just out of her reach, so Ned grabbed it and handed it to her. “I don’t know, Cat. And I realize she’s your sister, but I fear she’s unable to recognize anyone’s suffering but her own. I don’t want her here right now, to be honest.”

Catelyn swallowed. Ned’s assessment of her sister was accurate enough, but she still felt guilty. “I haven’t suffered as much as she has,” she said, defending Lysa. “We have four beautiful, healthy children and I’m just greedy and . . .”

At that moment, a very healthy six year old voice was heard plainly enough. “No, Robb! Daddy said I got to pick the next movie! That’s not even a Christmas show!”

“What are Robb and Sansa doing here? School started nearly an hour ago!”

Ned smiled at her and reached out to grab a strand of hair that had fallen in her face and tuck it behind her ear. “Their winter break started today, remember?”

“Oh, god,” she said, feeling even guiltier. On the first morning of Christmas break, she always made the kids a big pancake breakfast and then they sat about all morning in their pajamas watching Christmas shows. She had four beautiful, healthy children, and she was neglecting them—wallowing in grief as if she were the only woman who’d ever miscarried. She had no right.

“They got their pancakes, Cat,” Ned said as tears welled up in her eyes again. “I wasn’t certain how you’d feel about celebrating anything this morning—or about answering their questions yet. That’s why I left you in bed.” He gave her a goofy sort of smile. “And why I’m dressed like this.”

“I love you,” she said. She wanted to go downstairs and cuddle up on the couch with her children. She truly did. But she couldn’t tear her mind away from the little boy who would never eat her pancakes or hide his face against her chest when the Abominable Snow Monster threatened Rudolph. She felt paralyzed somehow. Stuck in limbo between the anticipation of her fifth child and the knowledge that the child was gone.

_Silent night. Holy night. All is calm. All is bright._

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. “I can’t go down there, Ned,” she breathed. “I can’t. I know I should be stronger. I’m selfish and a terrible mother and . . .”

“Stop it.”

He sounded almost angry, and she opened her eyes to look at him. “You are not selfish,” he said. “You are the finest mother I have ever known. And don’t you dare call yourself weak.”

“Ned . . .”

“For two days, I sat beside you while they threw words at you like ‘second trimester pregnancy loss’ and explained why you needed a D&C and how you would be ‘perfectly fine’ in a few days’ time, and we could start ‘trying again’ in a matter of weeks.” His face looked grim. “You wanted to slap all of them, Cat. I could see that. God knows I wanted to hit someone. But you were strong enough to get through the entire ordeal, and I took strength from you.”

“But I’m not through it,” she whispered.

“Of course, you aren’t! My god, Cat, do you think I am? When I called Robert this morning to tell him I wouldn’t be in, he told me to take care of you. And I intend to. But he didn’t say a damn word about the baby. My best friend, Cat, and he had not a word of sympathy to offer me for the loss of my child.” He shook his head sadly. “I do understand at least a bit of what you feel, my love. I didn’t carry him like you did, but I held him in my hand, too.”

Her tears flowed again then. She’d been so caught up in her own grief, she’d forgotten about his. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I did wrong. I don’t know . . .”

“You did nothing wrong, Cat. It just happened.”

That’s what they’d been told at the hospital on Saturday when Ned had driven her there, cramping, bleeding, and panicking. Miscarriages after thirteen weeks are rare. But they do happen. They’d been told lots of other things, too, but all Catelyn had really heard was that her baby was gone. They’d only told the children about the baby two weeks before when they’d hung the Christmas stockings.

“I just . . . I feel I should be stronger,” she said helplessly. “Think of all the women who lose babies and don’t have a house full of children to come home to. I should be grateful, Ned.”

He looked at her with those solemn grey eyes of his. “For our four living children? Yes, we should be more than grateful, and we are, Cat. You know we are. But we lost a child. They can call it a fetal loss or a miscarriage and go on and on about likely chromosomal abnormalities all they want, but it doesn’t change the truth. You and I made a child together.” He swallowed. “A son. And he was taken from us. And we have every right to grieve his loss no matter how many children we have.”

He put his arms around her then, and she cried against his chest as she hadn’t cried before. These weren’t the angry, choked sobs or the guilt-ridden tears she’d tried hard to hold back. This was simply an outpouring of grief and loss for the tiny boy who would never celebrate Christmas or anything else with his brothers and sisters. She cried until she felt quite empty, and in the wake of her tears, an odd sense of calm came over her. She was still heartbroken, but no longer as angry or terrified or just tied up in knots as she had been.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For making you cry?” Ned asked raising a brow.

“You didn’t make me cry. You let me cry. There’s a difference.”

_Grandma got run over by a reindeer! Walking home from our house Christmas Eve._

The world’s stupidest Christmas song blaring out loudly at that moment actually made Catelyn laugh. “God,” she said. “I hate that stupid song. How did I ever get talked into putting it in the mix?”

“Robb is extremely cute and very persuasive when he wants to be,” Ned replied with a smile.

She sort of laughed and sort of sniffed again. “Why did you let Sansa turn on the music anyway? If they’re watching movies?”

“I turned on the music.”

“You? You don’t even believe in Christmas!”

He raised his brows. “Don’t I? I confess I never gave it much thought except to be annoyed at having to find gifts my siblings wouldn’t hate year after year as if doing that on their birthdays wasn’t torture enough. Then you came into my life.”

“Ned, Christmas isn’t Valentine’s Day.”

“No, it isn’t. I believe in God, Catelyn. I always have. Maybe I don’t call him by name or get overly concerned about his family tree, but I know he’s there. And he’s never more there than when I look at you and our children. Don’t ever doubt that, my love. You see, I’ve seen many things in this world to convince me of God’s power, but you have convinced me of his love.”

“Ned . . .” she said as her eyes threatened to tear up again.

“As for my wanting to hear your Christmas carols . . . well . . .” He shrugged slightly. “I think that today of all days, I found comfort in the idea of God sharing this experience we call humanity. We loved this baby already, Cat, and we suffer for it. I love you and our children more than I can say, and I’d gladly suffer even more for any of you. The idea that God would suffer for those he loves . . . yes, I can take comfort in that even if your good Father Andrew does consider me a terrible pagan.”

She didn’t know whether to cry, laugh, or throw her arms around him so she did a bit of all three. 

He kissed her softly on the cheek. “I do think seeing the children would do you good, Cat.”

She nodded. “How is it they aren’t all up here? Did you threaten them?”

“No. Yes. Maybe a little. I wanted you to rest.” When she frowned at him, he continued. “They’re fine, Cat. The older two were upset when I told them about the baby yesterday, but they’re more worried about you, and seeing you will make them a good deal better. I don’t think Arya had quite wrapped her mind around the idea of a baby in the first place. She just wants to know that you’re all right. And little Bran just wonders where you are.”

“I should go down. Let me get dressed.”

“If by dressed, you mean some terrible flannel sleepwear with a Christmas design, go for it. But I’m staying here until you’re ready to go downstairs. You aren’t to move anywhere too quickly just yet, remember?”

She remembered. She’d nearly laughed when the doctor had told her that as she’d wanted nothing more than to curl up in her own bed in her own home and never to leave it. “The children . . .”

“Are fine,” Ned insisted. “Sansa hasn’t shouted any more so I’m assuming Robb let her choose a show. Arya’s enthralled by all of them. She’s little enough that she doesn’t remember them word for word yet from last year. Robb’s more than old enough to behave himself, and Bran’s sound asleep.”

“Asleep? Where?”

“On the living room floor. He scarfed down three pancakes, the little glutton, and then passed out cold before I could even wipe the syrup off his hands or face . . . or hair.”

Catelyn laughed again. It felt good. It felt wrong. She didn’t know what to feel.

“To be fair, he’d been up since before 6 am. I completely understand his wanting a nap already,” Ned continued with an exaggerated yawn.

“Poor Ned,” Catelyn teased him. “He’s always up by six, my love. I always get up with him so you can sleep that last half hour before your alarm goes off.” Two and a half year old Bran had only two speeds—high gear and full stop. He was either going ninety miles a minute or unconscious, and he could switch between the two with alarming alacrity. “All right, wait here for me then.”

Slowly, she raised herself out of the bed. Physically, she didn’t feel bad except for the dull cramping ache in her lower belly which the doctor had warned her would likely be present for a few days after the D&C. _D &C,_ Catelyn thought bitterly. _D &C. It sounds like a quick little service you might pop into a salon for—like a cut & color or a mani-pedi._ It should have a different name—a more terrible sounding name—something that actually sounded like what it was—the scraping away of all remaining evidence from her womb of the little life that had resided there for fifteen weeks.

“Cat?” Ned’s worried voice penetrated her thoughts, and she realized she’d stopped moving.

“I’m all right,” she sighed. “It doesn’t hurt much.” It didn’t. Not really. The pain probably would subside quickly, and that made her sad somehow. The pain in her belly was her last link to her tiny son, and when it was gone, how would she remember he’d been real? She refused to dwell on such thoughts and made her way into the bathroom. She had four other children who needed her.

When she and Ned made their way down the stairs and into the living room (far too slowly because he was overly careful of her, reminding her three times about the doctor’s admonishments concerning stairs), her heart actually felt as if it flipped inside her at the sight of Robb and the girls sprawled out on the floor, all close together with eyes glued to what appeared to be “The Year Without A Santa Claus.” Bran, as Ned had told her, was sleeping soundly a few feet away from them. Here in the living room, you could hear “I’m Mister Green Christmas, I’m Mister Sun . . .” emanating from the television at almost equal volume to the song playing in the kitchen. It was “Sleigh Ride” now, and it clashed terribly with the Heat Miser’s song, but the children seemed oblivious.

“You should probably turn off that music, Ned,” she said softly, but while the children’s attention could not be penetrated by the Christmas carols, the sound of her voice caused all of them to turn around immediately. At the sight of her, they jumped up and flung themselves at her, completely ignoring Ned’s panicked warnings not to grab at her.

Catelyn clutched them to her as tightly as she could, not caring that Arya’s head crashing into her lower belly had hurt or that Robb was squeezing her to the point of discomfort. She hadn’t realized how much she missed and needed them until she had them in her arms again, and she only released the three of them when Ned demanded they let her go in a voice loud enough to wake Bran and make him wail, “Mama!” as well.

Ned went to pick him up and ordered her to the couch, obviously not trusting her to obey medical instructions which included not lifting the toddler yet. He did bring him to her as soon as she was seated, however, and she hugged him to her as he grabbed at her hair with sticky, syrupy fingers.

“Are you all right, Mama?” Robb asked gravely. He appeared to have won the battle with the girls to grab the spot right beside her. He favored her in appearance—hair color, eye color—but he was looking at her with an expression of concern that was entirely his father’s.

“I’m fine, sweetie,” she assured him. “Just a little sad. And you four make me very happy.”

“I’m sorry that our baby brother went to heaven, Mama,” Sansa said, standing in front of her.

“I’m sorry, too,” Catelyn told her. “But he isn’t hurting, and I’m not hurting either. I promise you that. Come here, Sansa.” She managed to scoot Robb sideways so that she could scoot herself and Bran more to the middle of the couch and make room for Sansa on her other side.

That left only Arya standing there staring downward. “Arya?” Catelyn said softly.

“There’s no baby in your tummy?” her four year old daughter asked slowly and suspiciously.

“No, sweetheart. Not anymore,” Catelyn said softly.

“Where did it go?”

“To heaven, Arya!” Sansa said in exasperation. “And Daddy says we aren’t supposed to pester Mama with questions!”

“But how did it get out?” Arya asked her sister stubbornly.

Ned bent down and picked her up. “The same way all babies get out of their mommies’ tummies,” he said. “But this baby hadn’t grown big enough to live outside yet, so he couldn’t live, Arya.”

Arya glared down at Catelyn’s midsection. “Then he should have stayed put,” she declared. “For his own good!”

A strangled cry escaped Catelyn’s mouth before she could stop it. Arya had been told to stay put for her own good more times than anyone could remember. “You’re right, Arya,” she whispered, struggling to keep her own emotions under control. “He should have. But he couldn’t. It wasn’t the baby’s fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

Sansa put her arms around her, Bran clung to her, and Robb laid his head against her side.

“I want Mama, too,” Arya demanded.

“Robb,” Ned said, “Can you be a big boy and let your sister have a turn to sit by Mother?”

Robb made a huffing sound, but he got up. Arya practically dove out of Ned’s arms, and Catelyn shifted Bran to one arm so she could put the other around her brown haired daughter who snuggled close beside her.

“You’re a very big boy, Robb,” she said to her son who’d moved to stand beside Ned. “And a good, kind brother, to allow your sisters to sit beside me.”

He shrugged as if it was no big deal and wandered off to look at the Christmas tree in his best nonchalant nine year old manner. No one spoke then as the girls were happy just to have her there and allowed their attention to drift back to the show. 

Catelyn’s own attention was distracted by the strains of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” from the kitchen, but before she could ask Ned again to turn off the music, Robb exclaimed, “Hey!”

She looked up at him. He was standing by the mantel now, looking at their stockings. “Should we take the baby’s stocking down?” he asked, and once more Catelyn felt a yawning hole open up in the world beneath her, threatening to pull her into it.

“Robb!” Ned admonished him much too harshly. 

Catelyn wanted to comfort her son, to tell him it was all right and that Daddy wasn’t really angry at him. She wanted to. But she couldn’t stop staring at the stockings. Six of them all the same size with the names Ned, Catelyn, Robb, Sansa, Arya, and Brandon on them. The seventh was only about half the size of the others and it read, Baby Stark. It had hung on the mantel three times before. With Robb’s October birthday, Catelyn had not been pregnant over any Christmas, but she’d been six months pregnant with Sansa when Christmas rolled around, and Ned had arrived home from work one day with that stocking to proudly hang it beside the others. As Ned and Catelyn were stubbornly old fashioned about waiting to find out the gender of their children at birth (much to the annoyance of friends and relatives alike), they’d used the stocking again for the Christmases Arya and Bran had spent in her womb. 

This year, they’d used the stocking to tell the children about the new baby. She’d been just over thirteen weeks—safely into the second trimester. _Safely,_ Catelyn thought bitterly. Now the little stocking hung there expectantly beside the others, and Catelyn thought desolately of the Mickey Mouse pacifier she’d already bought to put in it, carefully hidden away with the rest of the Christmas gifts. _Why? Why did this happen?_

“I’m sorry, Mama! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you sad. Please don’t be sad.” She looked up to see Robb standing right in front of her, tears in his blue eyes. She realized she had tears in her eyes as well.

Sansa was actually crying, Arya looked terrified, and Bran was squirming in her arm because she was holding him much too tightly.

“Take him, Ned,” she said, looking up at her husband who looked both devastated and helpless. He reached down and took Bran though, and the child didn’t object to going to his father.

“You didn’t make me sad, Robb,” she said clearly. “And I’m sorry I frightened you all. But you shouldn’t be frightened of my tears, my darlings. I am sad that your baby brother won’t get to meet you or do all the wonderful things that you get to do. It’s okay to be sad sometimes. You all know I’ve told you that, and it’s true for mommies and daddies, too.”

“I don’t like you to be sad,” Arya said, her voice trembling.

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” She pulled Arya into her lap and patted the now empty spot beside her and motioned to Robb who sat there immediately. “But I can’t help it. It will get better, I promise. I can’t stay sad with such wonderful children, can I?”

“Does the baby stocking make you sad, Mama?” Sansa asked softly. “I think it’s kind of sad. Seeing it there and then thinking about the baby being gone.”

“It is a little sad,” Catelyn agreed, “but I think we should leave it up for this year.”

“Are you certain, Cat?” Ned asked, looking at her carefully, and she nodded.

“Will Santa still put candy in it?” Arya asked. “Even if the baby’s in heaven?”

“I am quite certain Santa will put candy in it,” Catelyn told them. “And you can all share it, and your baby brother in heaven will know you wish him a Merry Christmas.”

“And next Christmas, maybe the baby can come back here?” Arya asked hopefully, breaking Catelyn’s heart again.

“No, Arya,” Robb said, rolling his eyes. “When you’re dead, you stay dead. Like Grandpa Rickard. People don’t come back from heaven. You know that.”

“But Grandpa Rickard was old,” Arya protested as if this should make a difference.

“I’m afraid age has nothing to do with it, Arya,” Ned said gently. “Your brother is quite right. Death is not a place anyone can return from. Not even the very young.”

“But the baby’s okay in heaven, right?” she asked him.

“Yes,” Catelyn said quickly. Ned’s feelings about an afterlife were far more nebulous than hers, and she wanted no uncertainty on this point in Arya’s four year old brain. “The baby will be very happy in heaven, and the angels will look after him.” 

Ned gave her a questioning look, and she shrugged just a bit. She had no idea whether or not nurseries staffed by angels even made sense, but it seemed to have comforted Arya. “She’s four years old,” she mouthed at him.

“And maybe God will send some angels to put another baby in Mama’s tummy!” Sansa exclaimed, beaming at the idea of it.

Catelyn couldn’t even begin to think about another baby as her mind and heart were still much too full of the son she had just lost, but before she could come up with any sort of reply for Sansa, Robb stated emphatically, “That is NOT how babies get into their mothers’ tummies, Sansa. You don’t know anything.”

The smug smile on her firstborn’s face showed a certainty in his superior knowledge, and Catelyn had to fight back laughter instead of tears. It had only been a matter of months since the boy’s incessant questioning had led to Ned’s giving him a rather thorough lecture on reproduction, and Robb’s expression at the end of it had hardly been smug. He’d looked disbelieving, disgusted, and even a little ill.

“Robb!” Ned said sharply now.

“I’m not going to tell her,” Robb said quickly. “She’s too little.”

“I am not too little!” Sansa insisted. “Tell me what?”

“How babies get in there in the first place.”

“Robb,” Ned warned again.

“I know that already!” Sansa said, and Ned, Catelyn, and Robb all stared at her. “Babies come from love,” she said with a smile on her face, and an expression even more certain than brother’s.

“Yes, Sansa,” Ned said firmly. “Yes, they do. Now, why don’t you all go back to watching your movie. Your mother hasn’t had any breakfast, and we don’t want to welcome her home by starving her, do we?”

A chorus of ‘no’s met this question, and after being attacked by kisses from her three oldest children, Catelyn was able to rise from the couch as they flopped back onto the floor. She followed Ned into the kitchen and sat down. 

“Are you all right?” he asked her as he set Bran down on the floor. Wide awake now, Bran immediately walked to the one cabinet Catelyn didn’t keep child-locked. It was filled with large wooden spoons, two large Tupperware containers filled with big plastic blocks and two old cooking pots she seldom used any more. He immediately began throwing the blocks and beating upon one of the pots with a spoon, providing interesting new percussion to accompany “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

“No,” she said honestly. “But I will be. We will be.”

“We will be,” he echoed, coming to take her into his arms. He kissed her full on the lips then, deeply and tenderly. She realized it was the longest kiss they had shared since before she had found the blood on Saturday and called out to him in terror and panic. “I love you, Catelyn Tully Stark,” he said now.

“I love you, too.”

“Any Christmas thing that’s too hard for you this year, we can just . . .”

“No. Christmas isn’t hard. Christmas is wonderful, and I won’t take one bit of it away from those children in there. It’s losing a child that’s hard, Ned, and I know it is for you, too, although you hide it better than I do. Some tiny little part of my heart will always be missing, I think. Because Sansa was right. Babies are made of love. And that part of my love won’t ever belong to anyone else. But it won’t keep me from loving you or our other four children. I promise you that. We’ve both lost people before. We’ll get through it.”

“I can get through anything as long as I have you beside me,” he told her. “And Cat, about the other thing Sansa said, no child will ever take the place of this one. I know that, and I don’t think either of us want to even think about another baby right now. But if you ever do want another, I am quite prepared to fill the role of Sansa’s angels.”

It took her a moment to register that he was flirting with her. He’d gone from comforting her to flirting with her, so he must be somewhat reassured she wasn’t going to break down completely. “You are incorrigible, Eddard Stark,” she told him.

“No, I’m in love with my wife. Can pagans be angels, do you think? Perhaps we should ask Father Andrew about it.”

She knew she shouldn’t encourage him, but she couldn’t help laughing at him. It felt good to laugh. She pushed down the guilt that accompanied that good feeling. _It’s good to laugh with my husband. I need to laugh. I need to feel joy._

Encouraged by her laughter, he continued. “I don’t see what the good Father’s problem has been with me all these years, to be honest. I let him baptize the kids, didn’t I? And I certainly do my best to make you to cry out to God as often as I can.” 

The look he gave her then was positively lecherous. She rolled her eyes and crossed herself which made him laugh before kissing her again. 

“God it feels good to laugh with you, Cat,” he said, holding her in his arms even after they broke the kiss.

“I know,” she said.

“Laughter isn’t going magically make either of us all better, though.”

“I know,” she said again. “But it helps.”

“It helps,” he agreed.

“Food would help, too,” she told him. “You did say you weren’t going to let me starve.” 

“I’m the master of the pancake griddle, at your service, my lady.”

She smiled at him as he let go of her to grab the pancake batter. She knew he wouldn’t let her help so she sat down at the table. She wasn’t really hungry, but she knew she should eat. As soon as she was seated, Bran, apparently bored with the bounty from the cabinet, ran over and began to climb into her lap.

“Don’t lift him!” Ned warned her.

“I’m not,” she answered. “He’s climbing up all on his own. I swear this child can climb anything! He’s going to give me grey hair.”

“Pancake!” Bran yelled, standing up in her lap and pointing at Ned. “Me want pancake!”

“He can eat anything, too,” Ned grumbled. “Pancakes for two coming up.”

“Jingle Bells” fortuitously came on just then, and Bran began singing loudly as this was the only Christmas carol he actually knew quite a few of the words to. He’d started singing it a month ago, and Catelyn had already started imagining him teaching the song to the new baby the way Arya had taught it to him, and it made her sad for a moment. She wondered how long everything wonderful her children did would make her sad because of the child who would never do it, but as Bran shouted “Hey!” loudly at the end of nearly every line in the song whether it belonged there or not, she found herself laughing again at her happy, funny, little boy and thinking of him only.

“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” came on next, and Bran had little use for the slower tempo songs. Instead he looked at Catelyn and shouted “Ho, ho, ho, Mama!”

“Ho, ho, ho to you, too,” she laughed.

“Ho, ho, ho! May Kissmas!”

She laughed. “Merry Christmas to you, too, Bran!”

At that point, the other three came traipsing into the kitchen.

“Is Dad making more pancakes?” Robb asked, sniffing the air.

“Pancakes!” Bran shouted.

“We’re hungry,” Arya said.

“Yeah,” said Robb. “Can we have more pancakes?”

“With butter and syrup?” Sansa added.

Ned turned around and threw up his hands in mock exasperation. “ _More_ pancakes? You want second breakfast? Honestly, Catelyn, are we raising children or hobbits?”

Robb, the only one of the children to get the Lord of the Rings reference, grabbed his belly and laughed much harder than the joke deserved, and Catelyn found herself laughing right along with him. 

It was the first day of Christmas break. She was surrounded by her children, and the most wonderful man in the world was making her pancakes. _I love you,_ she said silently to the tiny child no longer tucked inside her womb. _I miss you._ Then she tucked him carefully away in her heart and allowed herself a holiday morning with her family. _One morning at a time,_ she thought. _One holiday at a time._

When Ned carried a stack of pancakes over to the table, he put the first two out on a plate for her. “Merry Christmas, my love,” he said with a smile.

“Merry Christmas, my love,” she replied, tilting her head up for a kiss.

“It’s not Christmas yet,” Robb protested. “And pancakes before kissing. We’re hungry.”

“Ah, Robb, you just don’t know any better yet!” Ned said, grinning at their oldest son. “And being married to your mother makes it Christmas every day.”

“Gross. Just give me the pancakes!”

Catelyn laughed, and Ned began doling out pancakes to everyone. When he’d poured coffee for Catelyn and himself, found glasses for all the children and managed to sort out who wanted milk, orange juice, and water, he raised his own coffee mug high.

“To the Stark family. May we have a blessed Christmas.” 

The kids began crashing their drinking glasses together so that Catelyn was surprised no one spilled anything, but Ned simply held her eyes. Those grey eyes told her so many things that words never could—so much about what they had been through over the past two days—so much about the loss they both knew they would never truly forget—so much about the promise that was always between them—a promise of love and support and understanding and ultimately joy in this life they had chosen to share together, whatever they faced in it.

Silently, she raised her own coffee mug and hoped he could see that same promise in her eyes as she looked back at him.

Then Bran grabbed a pancake off her plate and attempted to stuff the entire thing into his little mouth which caused all of the children to dissolve into laughter, and Ned and Catelyn joined in as Christmas music played in the background.

_Through the years we all will be together_

_If the fates allow._

_Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow._

_So have yourself a merry little Christmas now._


End file.
